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Chair

1936 (designed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Frank Lloyd Wright‘s furniture was always part of an integrated architectural conception that he referred to as ‘Organic Architecture’. ‘It is quite impossible’, he wrote, ‘to consider the building as one thing and its furnishings as another’. For the headquarters of an American manufacturer of cleaning products Wright designed a range of metal and wood desks and matching chairs of which this is one. Although first designed in heavy sheet aluminium, then in tubular aluminium, these proposals were abandoned in favour of cheaper tubular steel. Wright’s use of tubular steel was very different from that of European Modernists but was indebted to aluminium furniture designed by his contemporary, the American Warren MacArthur. At Johnson Wax, different coloured upholstery was used for different office departments.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Armrests: Maple with with a plastic laminate (similar to formica) on top of the maple substrate which has a wood-grain pattern. Upholstery: wool fibre. Boucle effect (twisted yarn and raised pile). Top cover in good condition clean and unworn, probable not original.
Brief description
Armchair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the S.C. Johnson Administration Building, 1936
Physical description
Painted steel with wood armrest and upholstered seat and back

Dimensions
  • 90th height: cm
  • 61st width: cm
  • 56.5 depth:
Measured 26/08/2011
Gallery label
(01/12/2012)
Desk chair
1936–7
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1949)

USA (Spring Green, Wisconsin)
Manufactured 1938–9 by Metal Office Furniture Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan

Frame: painted tubular steel, bent and welded
Armrest (replaced): maple with plastic laminate (replaced)
Upholstery: foam and wool top cover (replaced)

Designed for the Johnson Wax Building, Racine (Wisconsin)

Museum no. W.44-1981

Wright designed many desks and matching chairs for the Johnson Wax headquarters in Racine. They represent Wright’s view that ‘it is quite impossible to consider the building as one thing and its furnishings as another’. First designs in heavy sheet aluminium, then in tubular aluminium, were abandoned in favour of cheaper tubular steel. Different coloured upholstery was used for different company departments.
Production
Designed for the S.C. Johnson Administration Building, Racine, Wisconsin
Summary
Frank Lloyd Wright‘s furniture was always part of an integrated architectural conception that he referred to as ‘Organic Architecture’. ‘It is quite impossible’, he wrote, ‘to consider the building as one thing and its furnishings as another’. For the headquarters of an American manufacturer of cleaning products Wright designed a range of metal and wood desks and matching chairs of which this is one. Although first designed in heavy sheet aluminium, then in tubular aluminium, these proposals were abandoned in favour of cheaper tubular steel. Wright’s use of tubular steel was very different from that of European Modernists but was indebted to aluminium furniture designed by his contemporary, the American Warren MacArthur. At Johnson Wax, different coloured upholstery was used for different office departments.
Associated objects
Collection
Accession number
W.44-1981

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Record createdJanuary 14, 2009
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